Sparkleshare

Introduction

SVN or subversion requires downloading the entire project at least once: which is now totalling into several gigabytes of data, across a huge number of files.

This is getting unmanagable for people with slower internet connections, bandwidth caps, or even small harddisks. Our new way is to share instead of the entire project a 'production package': this is a smaller number of files (typically less than 500 Megs) that is much more managable. To syncronize this, we use Dropbox.

Production Package

The production package is a subset of the project tree, containing only the files that a particular artist needs to use. Typically the artist only edits one of the files (as is the case for the animators) but, the other files are needed to link in. IMPORTANT: Do not change the directory structure unless you really know what you are doing- otherwise , you may break links to other files.

Sparkleshare

Sparkle share resembles dropbox: the production package is a folder/directory inside the sparkleshare folder, and changes there are automatically synced with our server; we can also provide e.g. rig updates to animators via the same mechanism transparently. When a task is complete, and the file is safely in SVN deleting the folder is all that is needed to clear space for new work.

Sparkleshare instructions

Installation

1- Download sparkleshare for your platform from the sparkleshare website and install it.

2- Sparkleshare creates a Sparkleshare folder. Within that folder is a key (something like helga's key.txt) email the key to Bassam. Once that is done you are ready to share/recieve files.

Usage

Production Packages

1- you will recieve an email notifying you of a production package, it will have a name such as 'a3s05' 'train_interior' etc. The email will have two main pieces of information: the server address and the remote path.

2- Click on the 'add hosted Project..' menu item in Sparkleshare, and click on "On My Own server"

3- fill in the Address and Remote path from step 1 and press Add.

4- the new folder should appear after a short wait. You can access it from Sparkleshare's menu or from your normal file explorer/finder/nautilus/terminal.

5- Start work on your files. Your work will be synced to the server as long as sparkleshare is running.

Sharing data

If you want to share some data you can just drop it into the production package folder and it will be automatically shared.

OS Specific Notes

If a specific OS has issues, note it here:

1. How to get SparkleShare working on Windows

Alternative for the adventurous

Sparkleshare uses git (and ssh) behind the scenes. If you have/get these two pieces of software you can :

1- generate an ssh keypair using RSA, and send me the public key.

2- use git clone instead of sparkleshare to get the repo (I can email the uri)

3- use [git add] git commit and git push to push your changes, and git pull to get updates.

This is also the alternative for those who can't get sparkleshare to work. I can help with the linux end of things, but not for those on windows; if you can get this to work on windows, update the wiki here :)

On windows, Putty is the key to ssh, see: putty-ssh. read up on Putty on the wikipedia page